MORGANTOWN —
Of all the coaches on the West Virginia University staff, and this year you rest assured it is the right number, Steve Dunlap may well be assigned the most important job.
His main assignment is the WVU safeties, but that pales in comparison to his other assignment, which is to lift the Mountaineers’ kickoff coverage unit back into a NCAA Division I level after a couple of seasons of performing like a bad high school kickoff coverage team.
The Mountaineers were 107th a year ago.
So what was really an uneventful Friday turned eventful as Dunlap’s coverage unit got its first real action, facing coach Dave McMichael’s return team in some live kickoff coverage.
No one was really saying what happened in the closed practice, but it was improved coverage.
It would have to be.
“We’re just looking for headhunters and someone who can hang the ball up there for four seconds,” Dunlap said. “If it’s 3.1 or 3.2, we can’t get there.”
At present, both Corey Smith and John Howard are battling it out to kick off and both, according to Dunlap, are hanging the ball around the necessary four seconds.
To help them with their kicking, he has even moved the ball to the center of the field. In the past, they tried directional kickoffs and too often hit the ball badly.
“I found when I was playing golf that the wider the fairway was, the better I drove the ball. The more narrow, the worse I drove it,” he said.
He figures that might help them get that hang time and get the ball down to the 5-yard line.
The unit he is going against might be one of the really good kickoff return units in college football. Make no doubt that they expect a lot of good things to happen, considering that they are using the likes of Noel Devine, Jock Sanders, Tavon Austin and Brandon Hogan as return men.
Still, McMichael, who handles that unit, is experimenting with up players and trying to see how the new return role can best be handled.
In an effort to cut back on injuries, the NCAA had done away with the wedge that teams were using, setting three or four linebackers, fullbacks or tight ends tightly in front of the returner.
This year you can have only two players in that wedge, anyone else needing to be separated by at least two yards. McMichael says he’s sure the official will call that if a team tried to get away with a real wedge.
“Right now we’re looking at stacking it, with someone behind the two guys. You’re allowed to do that,” McMichael said.
Even though the coverage teams have been using speedy skilled people to cover, McMichael plans to have linebackers and fullbacks and tight ends mostly up front to block, although if the skill players prove to be tough to cover, he will change that.
Camp ends today with a final scrimmage that will go a long way to determine the two-deep, while next week the Mountaineers will begin preparation for the Sept. 4 opener against Coastal Carolina.
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
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WVU kick coverage unit gets going
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